After 186 days of deployment, two homecoming date changes putting him three days behind schedule (and three changes to our honeymoon to get everything straightened out!), Nick is finally home.

All ready for him to come home!

I was so beyond excited and nervous for him to come home. I picked out my outfit online over two months ago and have been gradually piecing it together. I even got my hair done for the occasion. (And my necklace even says "Hello Sailor!")

I always had to work when the boat pulled in from work-ups (where they go away for a few days to a few weeks at a time) and typically photography is forbidden on the sub piers anyway, so it was pretty exciting to see the submarine pull in for the very first time. About a half hour before it pulled into port, some of the wives met the boat out before it pulled into the harbor and put a HUGE 28 foot long lei on it. Well, I think they gave it to the guys to put on the boat. I didn’t take that boat trip because I knew Nick wouldn’t be on the top of the boat anyway. I did help make the lei a few weeks ago.

Matching Sailor girls!

Working on that 28-foot lei!

Our sub cake from the wives' Final Fling night

Anxiously awaiting our men!

The lei was actually a lot more work than I thought it would be. It was created by cutting rolls of tablecloth in half and lying three rolls on top of each other (blue, white, and gold), rolling them out on picnic tables, punching holes every 6 inches, and basically weaving rope through the tablecloth and scrunching it up every three feet of rope. It took about 3 hours to make but looked really cool hanging on the sail of the sub.

That's our boys getting tugged in- see the big lei?

I recognized Nick as soon as he climbed up to the topside of the boat. It was so weird staring at him from behind the little tent they had set up waiting for him to walk across the pier and onto Hawaii land for the first time in over 6 months. It felt so strange to see him again. Almost a little awkward! Who would have thought! Then again, we have been married for 7 months…and only seen each other for about 2 or 3 weeks of that time.

HE'S HOME!!!

Maggie was pretty darn happy to see her daddy!

It just felt so great to be hugged and kissed by him again. Even Maggie was SO happy to see him again. She came over to greet me after a few minutes of just licking him (she really isn’t a licker either!) and went right back over to him. After a lot of rearranging and unfortunately quite a bit of money lost, we will finally have our honeymoon. It was originally supposed to be on Kauai for 4 days and Maui for 3 days. But with all the homecoming date changes and loss of leave time that Nick unfortunately won’t get back, we had to cut it down to 5 days in Maui (and pay more just to get that and to get downgraded). But it will be a lot of fun. I am hoping to book a couples massage on the beach for us. Our second night there we are going to go to the Old Lahaina Luau. I hear that’s the best one in the whole state of Hawaii.

I’m so excited to just spend time with him. My goal is Mai Tai’s on the beach in a beach chair like those Corona commercials. Ahhh, happiness. I’ll post pictures about our honeymoon after we get back. Then we get to pick up our new puppy too! So many exciting things ahead. I’m just so happy to have my handsome husband home!

My homemade Welcome Home banner-followed by a good old fashioned Rickrolling

Ahhh, October. Thoughts of burnished leaves, fuzzy sweaters, thunderstorms, snuggly boots, and candy corn pop into your brain. Well, pretty much the only one that applies to Hawaii is the candy corn. Oh, well.

Time is drifting along on the island. It seems a little wistful to think that a whole summer went by without Nick, but so is military life. At least it was well spent.

These ladies have been deployment lifesavers.

Besides, the deployment clock is visibly ticking down. Now that I'm so much closer to his coming home than his NOT coming home, it makes everything more fun. All the preparation going into our first Homecoming- what a blast!

I have my outfit all planned out down to the tiniest of details. I can't wait to put up pictures afterwards! I still have some things I need to purchase for it but I've got plenty of time. I just like to be on top of it all.

I also started thinking about a Welcome Home banner. We don't live on base- we bought our house here in Hawaii and have a very strict community as far as hanging things outside (I heard a house nearby got written up for having an American flag outside- just insane). I feel like Welcome Home banners are maybe something that people on base do more.

But Eff it. I'm doing it my own way. And by my way, I really mean my way. I'll elaborate more on that later.

Meet the newest love of my life!

I also have some other BIG news (in a very tiny package). Nick and I had been talking for a while about getting another puppy. I LOVE my dog and want her to have someone to play with and to keep her company. Also, we adopted Maggie when she was about 6 or 7 months old so we missed out on the very young puppy stages. Which was probably good for a first dog, but it’s still an experience I’d like to go through. We originally were going to get one next year, but with the way the schedule is working out we realized it would be better to get one now than to wait. And I lucked out- the opportunity arose and….we’re getting a beagle puppy (or "beaglet" as one of my good friends calls them)!

Couldn't resist. Bought.

I can’t wait. She’s a few weeks old now and will be ready to go home soon. I met her today and she is a rambunctious little bugger but just adorable and a total cuddlebug. I’ve already found the cutest things for her. I’m convinced she needs to have a collar covered in cupcakes and or sprinkles. I was thinking a dainty name would be cute. I was also thinking of some Hawaiian names since we’d be getting her here. I’m brainstorming names now. Since she is a purebred beagle and very lady-like looking, some names I have come up with so far (some from the help of friends) are:

Calypso (sea nymph who keeps Odysseus on her island in Homer’s The Odyssey- made me think of being so far out here in Hawaii)

Daisy

Paisley

Olive

Bellini (notice a pattern?)

Picnic

Audrey

MaiTai

Trouble should maybe be her middle name.

If anyone can think of a great name for this sweet girl, leave me a comment! I’d love more ideas! I did come up with a great one while sitting on the beach yesterday brainstorming and listening to Bob Marley. I thought to myself, “Oh! 'Marley'! That would be such a cute name for a dog! Ohhhh…..Bummer.” Too bad someone beat me to it. Hmph.

October is the beginnings of fall, which usually means the changing of the color of leaves and the air starting to get a little bit chillier. Not so much in Hawaii.

I think I was our Oktoberfest ambassador

We did have a little bit of rain the last few days. Which, considering it actually rained on my side of the island (which gets less than 20 inches per year) is a pretty big deal. Of course, by rain I mean drizzle. But to Hawaii it really is a big deal. The reporters were out on roofs with their umbrellas describing the weather as "wet" and pointing out all the clouds to the camera. Too funny. They acted as though a hurricane was touching down.

October brings us closer and closer to the end of deployment too, thank goodness. I'm counting the days down. I have been counting since he left, but the number is starting to seem less depressing at this point.I feel really lucky to have made friends with the other wives from Nick's boat- who are just SUCH a blast to hang out with. One of the girls had an idea to go to an Oktoberfest event at the Hale Koa hotel in Waikiki last night.

Drinking contest!

Oktoberfest was always a big deal to me and my mother's side of the family when I lived in Maryland. It was a yearly tradition to go to the Maryland State Oktoberfest in downtown Baltimore. Since I'm about half German, my family really got into it. I wore leather lederhosen as a little girl, and as I got older I graduated to wearing traditional German dresses each year. You know, the ones that look like the St Pauli girl but not as short. :) My grandma bought me one of the dresses of my very own the second to last Oktoberfest I went to in Maryland. I wore it there once, but shortly afterward they stopped having Oktoberfest in Maryland. My grandmother also passed away not too long after.I asked my friends if I should wear my German dress to Oktoberfest last night- I wasn't exactly sure how crazy that would look at an Oktoberfest in Hawaii, or how into it people get here.

Barefoot Bar after Oktoberfest with the wives

I had to really squeeze to fit into it (hey, I first got it 5 years ago!) but I'm glad I wore it.The night was a blast. I don't know a lot of German other than one through ten (which isn't very conversational), but quickly learned "hello" was "Gutentag." I also remembered my Grandpop always calling people "Dummkopf" (dumb head), so I spent a lot of time yelling "Gutentag, dummkopf!" and of course goodbye, which is "auf wiedersehen." (I think I was singing that "So long, Farewell" song from The Sound of Music a LOT by the end of the night.)

Gutentag!

Then upon arriving it didn't take long for me to remember "Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke, Hoi Hoi Hoi!" which is an awesome drinking chant I never appreciated when I was little. Mainly my early Oktoberfest memories were of weird old guys in lederhosen with really bad beer breath doing the polka.I even ended up partaking in a beer drinking contest with four other ladies (three of whom were other wives from the boat) with a big mug of beer with multiple straws coming out of it. We somehow didn't win (I think it was fixed). There's no way those wimpy guys beat us. I got a lot of compliments on my dress, and it was even fun walking to another bar afterward still wearing it.Hands down, Grandma would have been proud I wore the dress. And my Grandpop would have been proud I was in a beer drinking contest. Good times.